To antifoul or not

[Rhylsailer99]

Last time I painted on antifoul was June 2022, I'm thinking to save on paying for a lift out and lift in plus storage and doing it next season.
My boat is a bilge keel so can just be scraped off on a sandy beach .

 

[Boathook]

Last time I painted on antifoul was June 2022, I'm thinking to save on paying for a lift out and lift in plus storage and doing it next season.
My boat is a bilge keel so can just be scraped off on a sandy beach .

Use eroding antifoul and you don't have to scrape.

 

[Rhylsailer99]

That's what I had but its more or less gone, hempel classic I think it is. I'm thinking could it be slapped on in-between a tide if I am quick with just one quick coat.

 

[B27]

You could just scrub between tides.
How much fouling you get will vary from place to place, but having scrubbed off a lot of my antifoul, I was getting significant slime after a week or two in the Summer.
If you've got time, you can put on the AF over a couple of tides, you only need a good drying place for the last bit, between the keels and the bottoms of the keels.

Quite a few people I know do their AF late Spring or Summer, so the paint is most potent at peak growth season, and you've got long warm days to do the work. Some yards or clubs may offer deals for a week out of the water.
Or you could take a small boat out on a trailer some places.

 

[fredrussell]

I only apply antifoul once every two years. I have one of those curved-pole scrapers and in the second year I give hull a clean from the pontoon once a month or so. I use Hempel Tiger Xtra and lots of it! If you’re applying biannually, whatever brand you use, I think that’s the key. Put plenty on.

 

[geem]

I hate any fouling on my hull. The drop in speed is very noticeable. We are coppercoated. If we have sat at anchor for a few weeks, we clean the bottom with a hookah. We can't have modern production boats sailing past us

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I hate any fouling on my hull. The drop in speed is very noticeable. We are coppercoated. If we have sat at anchor for a few weeks, we clean the bottom with a hookah. We can't have modern production boats sailing past us

Can you not swim with a brush? We do that in UK waters. Likewise cannot bear any fouling or slime at all. It has an even greater effect on us.

 

[Sandy]

Last time I painted on antifoul was June 2022, I'm thinking to save on paying for a lift out and lift in plus storage and doing it next season.
My boat is a bilge keel so can just be scraped off on a sandy beach .

Why antifoul at all. As long as you beach the boat every few weeks you can clean its bottom.

 

[Stemar]

I tried everything on Jissel, but she sat in the mud for a couple of hours each tide; the mud stuck to the bottom and the critters stuck to the mud so, in the end, I gave up and scrubbed a few times a season. Not antifouling made no perceptible difference to the amount of growth.

Jazzcat lives on the same mooring, and has the same issue. I'm going to try a hard antifoul this year in the hope that it'll stay on through the scrubs better than the eroding stuff, but it that doesn't work, it'll be back to don't bother. I do have the advantage that our club has scrubbing grids and powerful jet washers available.

 

[vyv_cox]

My first boat was 11 years old when I bought it and had never been antifouled. Fin keel kept in a drying berth in Fleetwood, standing alongside a jetty. P. O. would brush the hull down monthly to clear any fouling

 

[Mister E]

If your based at Rhyl then you could dry out on a hard sandy or gravel beach and do the job over one tide.
If you scrub when there is about a foot of water left as the tide drops, you will have plenty of time to apply the antifoul before the next tide.
It is common practice at some harbours around Porthmadog.

Just make sure you have plenty of tea as you will have a wait to refloat.

 

[geem]

Can you not swim with a brush? We do that in UK waters. Likewise cannot bear any fouling or slime at all. It has an even greater effect on us.

7'2" draft. There is a lot of keel down there. The waters warm but it takes about an hour to clean the bottom with the second person doing the water line

 

[Chiara’s slave]

7'2" draft. There is a lot of keel down there. The waters warm but it takes about an hour to clean the bottom with the second person doing the water line

It’s surprisingly hard down there, with the scrubbing to do I’ll grant you. I drop the centreboard and scrub that, at 1.6m, you run out of air pretty quickly. Doing the XOD on her mooring is quite tough with a 1m draft, but she’s out in the tide. I’m probably quite hardened to this, I do both our boats weekly in the summer.

 

[geem]

It’s surprisingly hard down there, with the scrubbing to do I’ll grant you. I drop the centreboard and scrub that, at 1.6m, you run out of air pretty quickly. Doing the XOD on her mooring is quite tough with a 1m draft, but she’s out in the tide. I’m probably quite hardened to this, I do both our boats weekly in the summer.

You could build a simple hookah. We have an aquarium compressor. It basically a diaphragm pump. We then have 60ft of 10mm air breathing hose and a low pressure regulator. We have been using it for 5 years. It's a very common setup out here for cleaning the hull. I does make the job far easier and faster. With a suction handle, it's the easier job compared to cleaning the waterline with snorkel and mask

 

[Caladh]

Why antifoul at all. As long as you beach the boat every few weeks you can clean its bottom.

Why would you do that every few weeks when you could/should be sailing

 

[Refueler]

I haven't antifouled my Bilge Keeler for many years .. mainly because she sits in Fresh to mildly brackish river water at back of house. Plus she has a full underbody that makes getting behind the keels etc a real pain ... To do it well - needs her lifted up onto blocks to get some height to get oneself slid in !

My other fin keeler will have a full job done most likely - discussions underway at present. Given UK waters - I would antifoul whether lifted often and washed off or not. UK waters are terrible for fouling ...
Here in Baltic - you can actually get away without - as long as you lift at least mid season and give a good scrub down .. or 2 lifts through the year ...

 

[fredrussell]

With a suction handle, it's the easier job compared to cleaning the waterline with snorkel and mask

Suction handle is a great idea - cheers.

 

[Marceline]

we've got a couple of small patches of missing coppercoat where it'd rubbed along the mooring ball on our swing mooring (one of various of my newb mistakes - I think the strop was too short)

I had been dithering on getting a top-up kit from Coppercoat (just as we've never done it before or epoxyd) but am now wondering reading your suggestions above if maybe I leave it for this season and try and either brush her from the bow below the waterline each time we get on at the weekend, or find somewhere we can dry out on bilge keels ?



either ways I'm def getting a pro to make up a new strop for this season

 

[Refueler]

Of course many BK' boats also have drying moorings ... with also many sitting in mud .. those two factors can actually have a marked effect on decreasing the amount of 'life' that clings to the hull.

 

[Sandy]

Why would you do that every few weeks when you could/should be sailing

A bit like climbing Chomolungma (Mount Everest), because you can.

My last boat was a bilge keeler on the Exe and very often the tides were not conducive to sailing, but I could move the boat a few hundred metres, dry out and clean the hull. Now I have a fin keel on the Tamar and need to book the club scrubbing grid.

One of the joys of boat ownership is looking after your craft. I get to inspect the hull every few weeks and as I'm coppercoated able to wipe off the slime.

The racing boys and girls are seen every week heaving their boats over to expose the keel then rush about with brushes on the pontoon to clean the boats bottoms. Looks like extremely hard work.

We all enjoy sailing in different ways, one of the joys on this activity.